


Captain Becker's Chicken Soup For The Soul

by TheLibranIniquity



Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-16
Updated: 2010-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLibranIniquity/pseuds/TheLibranIniquity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Becker has a cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain Becker's Chicken Soup For The Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ExplodedPen, who was suffering from a nasty cold and demanded Becker be put through the same ordeal.

“This isn't fair. I sh... should be out there doing my job, but _no_ , Detective Constable I'm So Awesome Germs Fear Me Quinn just had to...”

Becker sneezed. And tried not to cry when it felt like there were breeze blocks sliding around in the space where his brain used to be. After what felt like an eternity, but was realistically less than ten seconds, the back of his neck felt cold, so he pulled the blanket tighter around him.

It also occurred to him, once the icebergs on his back had retreated into yellow fleece, that nobody was around to actually hear his deep and meaningful witticisms. He didn't blame them. If he knew anyone who wasn't him who was slowly dying of blocked sinuses and breeze blocks in the brain, he'd do the polite thing and stay the hell away from them. Unlike certain Detective bloody Constables who just swanned about the place with nary a sniffle or watery eye to be seen, infecting the unsuspecting public at large with every bloody...

Becker whimpered as his nose forgot its standard operating procedure. He huddled further under the blanket, as though that would make any difference to the thump-thump-thumping going on in his head.

He hated being sick. Hated the way every system in his body teetered just on the brink of collapse but never quite worked up the courage to make that final leap; hated the smell of super-strength Lemsip and the taste of cough medicine at the back of his mouth. Most of all, though, he hated the way he became a self-pitying wreck in the face of a common cold.

The universe clearly had it in for him.

A fact that was proven just minutes later when the buzzer to his flat sounded. He poked his nose out of the protection of the blanket and glared as hard as he could at the front door. To answer it, he'd have to get up, and to get up meant forsaking the cocoon he'd only just managed to construct for himself.

The buzzer sounded again. The noise echoed around Becker's head like some never-ending siren. He cursed the universe at large several times as he pulled himself up from the armchair – never once loosening his grip on the blanket – and plodded towards the front door, wincing as pins and needles hit his left leg.

By some miracle he hit the intercom on the first attempt. “Who is it?”

“It's me. Can I come up?”

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind Becker knew he knew the owner of the voice, but he couldn't have put a name to it if his life – what little there was left of it – depended on it. He hit the buzzer and moved back into the living room and waited.

Another eternity later the front door opened and a head appeared around it. “Hey, Becker. How are you feeling?”

Becker squinted at the figure. Something didn't quite look right, but he finally knew who the visitor was. “Connor?” he asked, then promptly sneezed twice.

“Bless you.” Connor shut the front door behind him.

“Nnngh.” Becker wiped his nose with a corner of the blanket. Manners and decorum were the first casualties of illness. He blinked a few more times. “Connor?”

“Yes,” Connor nodded slowly. “Hang on – you didn't know it was me?”

Becker scrunched his face up and groaned.

“Becker, what were you going to do if you'd let someone up here who turned out to be – oh, I don't know – dangerous?”

That was a simpler concept. That was something Becker could respond to. “I am a fully train... full... fully trained...”

Maybe not.

“Yes...?”

Becker sneezed. “I'm not feeling very well.”

“You do look a bit like death reheated.”

Becker glared at him. It didn't work though; instead cowering in a corner or even looking a bit intimidated, Connor simply smiled.

Eventually the headache receded a little. “What are you doing here?” Becker asked.

“You let me in,” Connor said brightly.

Far too brightly. Wasn't there a law against being that brightly spoken?

“No. Here.” Becker pointed at the floor through his blanket.

Connor frowned. “I don't follow.”

Connor's brain had to be in far worse condition than his for not understanding that. “You don't know where I live,” Becker said as patiently as he could – and as quickly as he dared. “I didn't tell you where I live. I've never told you where I live. I don't remember tell... how did you get my address?” He shivered, and pulled the blanket tighter around him.

“Hacked into your personnel record.” Connor looked unrepentant. “Don't worry, I didn't snoop, just got your address. Just wanted to make sure you weren't dead. You know.”

Did he? Did he know? Becker didn't think he knew. In fairness he tried not to think too much at all in his current condition, but that had never stopped his brain before.

He groaned and moved back towards the armchair. The pins and needles had receded only to be replaced with lead weights running the length of all his limbs. He sank onto the chair and tried feebly to pull the blankets back around him. Something dug into his leg and he tried not to cry. Of everything else that had tried to kill him today now his _armchair_ had to have a go?

It just wasn't fair.

With one final burst of superhuman strength, Becker reached under his leg and pulled out... the television remote. He threw it vaguely in the direction of the TV, disgusted at its sudden betrayal and completely unprovoked attempt to cause him even more pain than he was currently enduring.

“Oh hey, don't chuck it – you'll break it!” Connor darted forward and placed the remote carefully on top of the TV.

“Nnnngh.” Brilliant comeback, that. Right up there with every eloquent put down he'd... forgotten the rest of the sentence. Becker dimly remembered a time he'd enjoyed normal brain function. That must have been nice for him.

Connor didn't seem to be finished, though; he started poking and prodding at the television. “Ooh, you're watching Captain Scarlet? I used to love that when I was a kid!”

Rather than dignify that with an answer, Becker glared at Connor. He rather suspected the effect was lost somewhere beneath the blocked nose, bleary eyes and bright yellow fleece blanket.

It didn't stop him trying, though.

“It's not a bad choice, though,” Connor said – maybe he'd got the message after all. “When I'm sick, out comes the Sixth Doctor!”

“Too long.”

“Point. Although that way I'm forcing my brain to function so I don't completely dissolve in a wave of...” Connor broke off, staring at Becker. “Not that that's going to happen to you.”

Why had he come here again? It couldn't have been solely to act as a walking, talking instrument of torture designed to attack Becker at his lowest point. That would just be cruel. Connor wasn't cruel. Connor was a great many things, including loud, unnecessarily cheerful and too brilliant for his own good, but he wasn't cruel.

“Are you sure it's just a cold you've got?” Connor stared at him.

Becker frowned and tried to remember what he'd just been thinking... Oh. “Did I just say that out loud?”

“...Yeah.”

Becker groaned and burrowed further underneath the blanket. “If you're staying, keep the noise down.” He might want one of those face mask thingies that doctors wore to stop Danny Quinn's germs spreading even further, but Becker wasn't sure he had the brain function to put that into actual spoken words.

“All right.” Connor grabbed the remote control and bounced onto the sofa. He aimed the remote at the TV a couple of times and then looked over at Becker. “I brought soup with me. Seemed appropriate. Do you want some?”

Becker thought about this for a minute. If he was going to be really honest with himself – and he even double checked with his brain that he wasn't saying this bit out loud – he wanted his mummy, but soup was a more than acceptable substitute. “Is it tomato?”

“Er, no. Chicken.” Connor pulled a face. “Is that bad?”

“I don't like tomato.” Becker didn't really like chicken soup either, but he was in no fit state to hound Connor out of his flat, and wasn't that just the most terrifying outcome possible of being sick?

“Okay, then.” Connor made no move to get off the sofa.

Becker stared at him. He'd just been promised soup. He didn't like soup, but he'd been promised soup, and now he wanted soup.

Finally, Connor wilted under Becker's pathetic excuse for a glare. “I'll get right on it,” he promised, finally – finally – getting up off the sofa.

“And tea,” Becker called after him. Lots and lots of tea to wash away the after taste of Lemsip. That probably wasn't how it was supposed to work, but he didn't care.

“Coming right up!” Connor called back from the kitchen.

Becker settled back in the armchair, twitching when pins and needles threatened to erupt in his leg again. Soup, tea – and someone to operate the DVD player so he didn't have to.

Maybe there was something to this being sick malarkey after all.


End file.
